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KREBS

On beats and beatniks

Once, I stumbled across a rant on a
web site somewhere (which I have long
since lost track of).

This guy had a thing about people who
thought that Maynard G. Krebs was a
real beatnik, and he was going on
about how this was just a character
played by Bob Denver on a goddamn TV
show, and he should no way, no how be
compared to real beats like Neal
Cassady.

My take:

   Yes, Maynard G. Krebs was
   a role played by Bob Denver.

   And Neal Cassady was a role
   played by Neal Cassady.

      You can drive yourself crazy, chasing after
      authenticity, looking for the real thing.


Ah here we go:
From "Another Superficial Piece About 176 Beatnik Books":
[ref]

   "This guy I know who makes low-budget horror films
   is always trying to make a case for Maynard
   G. Krebs as a beatnik, a real beatnik, to which I
   tell him: Maynard G. Krebs was a ROLE played on
   the Dobie Gillis show by Bob Denver, the basic
   thrust of which was I-hate-work/what-can-I-pretend-
   this-week-is-totally-absurd-enough-to-call-groovy.
   If you wanna go so far as to declare such shtick
   (qua shtick) beat, you might as well call the
   Fonz (even Springsteen) punk-rock. You can, but
   what's the payoff?  Thin it out that much, why bother?"



The reason the Fonz ain't punk (or ain't a
real "Greaser", which is more to the point)
isn't that it was merely a role, the reason is
that the schtick just sucked.

And okay, why bother with Krebs.  This is why:
because that character put it across, at
least sometimes, and did it on nation-wide TV.

Yes, he was a sanitized beatnik, but that was
the best you could possibly do on a sit-com,
and some of the stuff that they did do
actually worked.

   This is one of the few things that I remember
   about the Gillis show (which I haven't seen in
   a few decades, unlike you cable addicts out
   there):

   Dobie is stressing out about one of his
   teen angst problems, and he's been
   looking for Maynard all over town.

   Finally he's found him downtown hanging
   around by this draw bridge.  He's been
   there all day, because he wants to see
   it open.

   They shoot the scene from the view point
   of the bridge, Krebs facing the camera
   gazing in naive, innocent wonderment ("Look
   at that!"), Gillis ranting at him from
   the side, only giving an annoyed, puzzled
   glance at the camera ("Uh, yeah.  That's
   great.").

                                        AMERICANBEAUTY


That's not exactly the "Sunflower Sutra" turned
to film, but it's close enough for early sixties
TV (the Dobbie Gillis Show ran '59 to '63).



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